In a heartfelt blog post, Gandi CEO Stephan Ramoin explained the origins of the company and its values. One thing that’s unique about Gandi is that is has grown mostly by word-of-mouth; the company didn’t jump into the advertising game like many registrars.

With a private equity backer, Ramoin noted that the company will now look to acquire other businesses for the first time.

Gandi has revenues of over 37 million euros and 800,000 customers. More than half of its sales come from France, where it is located, but other regions have contributed substantially since the company created overseas subsidiaries in 2012. Gandi has more than 2.5 million domains under management.

Deal includes cash and share consideration with earnout that could make it a $55 million total price tag.

CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) announced today that it has agreed to acquire KeyDrive S.A. for up to $55 million.

The deal includes initial consideration of $35.8 million, made up of $16.5 million in cash and the rest in shares of CentralNic. That equals an enterprise value of $44.5 million after considering debt and other assumptions.

An additional $10.5 million will be paid as an earnout, with at least 15% of that in cash.

KeyDrive is the parent company of Key-Systems, Moniker, BrandShelter and other domain name brands. In the 2017 financial year, it grossed $58.26 million and had an adjusted EBITDA of $5.87 million.

CentralNic is a registry services provider and owns retail registrars including Instra and Internet.bs.

Publicly traded domain name registrar and registry CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) has agreed to acquire domain name registrar Instra Group for AU $33 million (USD $24 million), the company announced today.

The purchase price includes AU $30 million in cash and AU $3 million in stock, with AU $5 million held in escrow and paid out over the next five years.

To fund the acquisition, CentralNic plans to issue 25 million more shares at 40 pence each, raising £10 million (USD $15 million). The shares are being offered at a discount of 30% to yesterday’s closing mid-market price.

Understandably, existing shares are under pressure today because of this new share issue. Shares are down 18% to 47 pence each as of 9 PM EST.

Also, the company sold $3.6 million in premium domain names, partially to help fund the acquisition. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this includes one or more of the company’s 2 letter domain names. I’ll investigate.)

Instra generated revenue of AU $14.8 million (USD $10.6 million) in the fiscal year ending June. With 150 country code domain names available, the registrar has become a favorite of corporate clients trying to protect their brands. It also has a retail registrar under the OnlyDomains brand and offers a reseller service.

Second, we closed the acquisition of BuyDomains, a Waltham, MA based provider of premium domain products and services, in the second half of September. BuyDomains allows us to address our subscribers’ needs for premium domains. BuyDomains also provides us with certain rights to valuable intellectual property. We feel this acquisition rounds out our domain product offering, but does not change our go to market approach of leading with a web presence bundle.

With the sale of the BuyDomains assets, NameMedia has essentially sold off its operating businesses and created an exit for its investors.

NameMedia sold its Afternic business to GoDaddy in September 2013. That left it with its million domain portfolio as well as the BuyDomains site, a popular domain name destination for small and medium businesses.

NameMedia was originally created with the purchase of Mike Mann’s BuyDomains (RareNames) for $72.5 million plus stock. The company filed to go public in 2008, but later withdrew its plans.

It wasn’t until last evening that I saw that it wasn’t about the partnership — GoDaddy announced it acquired Locu.

Locu helps businesses gets exposure on sites such as Yelp, YP.com, FourSquare, and Facebook. It fits with GoDaddy’s target small business market.

There are two takeaways from this acquisition.

First, consider partnerships with GoDaddy as potentially leading to an acquisition.

Second, GoDaddy’s name should be thrown in the hat more as a possible acquirer of companies that target the SMB market. Its cash war chest isn’t as big as Google’s and some other companies, but it can easily tap funds when the right opportunity presents itself. And although the company made its first business acquisition just one year ago, I expect it to ramp up efforts under new CEO Blake Irving.